? About 3 fish.

[koised]

Hello,

I have some koi (two were born here,one was purchased) and would like your oppinions on thier development. The first is about 18 inches orange and white 3 year old. I am curious about the pink color on its head and it seems a little pot bellied to me. The second is same age and lenght three colored. There seems to be more black under the skin, will it continue to develop? The third is a 9 inch fish I purchased last year at 3 inches that I call Spot (looking at him it is easy to see why). Do you think this pattern is going to stay?

[koifishgirl]

First pic is a kohaku and is full of eggs and looks like the sanke is a male and the other is a female kohaku, put them together and spawn them you should turn up with some good fry. All the koi look good and the kohaku in the first pic look like it may grown to be a big gal if given the room to grow. The Sanke is also a nice koi. I really think you should spawn the koi and see what they will produce. Of course that is just what I would do.

[koifishgirl]

Sorry I meant the third koi looks like it will grow large, looks to be female. Nice looking koi to.

[koised]

Thanks for the reply.

I hope the kohaku is not full of eggs. This fish is in 40 to45F water and has been for months. It has been barely fed anything at all during that time. Winters here are long and the koi usually breed - depending on the weather - from late April to mid July and do not start to fatten for a quite a while yet. I am concerned that she is this large and has been scince last summer.

[KoiCop]

where are you at, anyway?

[koised]

I am in Michigan. I keep most of my koi in a greenhouse pond this time of year to keep them from the preditors while dormant. Water temp was 45F today-but that is high for this time of year due to the unseasonally warm wheather lately.

[KoiCop]

Thanks for the reply. You might update your profile to show your location.

Oh, and WELCOME to K-B. Don

[koised]

Thanks for the welcome!

I did go in and edit my profile. I am not too computer literate. Most of the difficult things in here I am still having to get help doing. This is a very interesting site and it is motivating me to learm more about this machine though.
Can't think of anything more motivating than chatting about koi!!

Mikel

[koifishgirl]

not to worry mine are filling with eggs now and my water temps are in the low 50's its the time of year for them to start producing eggs for the spring. Dont worry they wont spawn till spring when the water temps warm up to at least 68 deg. If those are the only three koi you have in your pond you will have some nice fry this spring unless you seperate them they are for sure gonna spawn as the female will be ready just as soon as the water temps get right for her. All of my female are already full of eggs, by this spring they look as if they will bust.

[koised]

I am considering breeding koi again this year if I can get the earth bottom ponds back in shape(they have silted in badly over the last several years). I have some other males that might be a better choice for the female in the picture though. The male is going to be placed with its mother and another male in a small pond and if they breed I will remove as many eggs as I can. That fishes mother was also born here. One big problem I have is limited resources to raise and keep large fish. I am only able to keep about 100 fingerlings the first year( due to the short season here they are usually quite small) and usually not more than 10 or so the next. The 2 larger fish came from 2 different spawns 3 years ago and I only have a total of 4 fish that I kept from them. Only 1 of the parents of them is still alive. The small koi in the picture is a favorite of mine-mostly because it was one of those rare finds in a discount type pet shop.